Paul Greenberg

Paul Greenberg offers a trusted perspective on national and world policy, the South, family, religion, literature, abortion, civil rights, character and values. Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Recent articles

Opinion

Whatever is being said about our erratic president here at home, he seems to have made a great fan out of his Russian counterpart: “I have no disappointment at all,” Vladimir Putin said when asked about President Trump. “Moreover, on a personal level he made a very good impression on me.’’ Much as a previous American president, Barack Obama, did on everyone else when he sought to talk race relations over a beer or two with the fellas. Now there was a man...

Opinion

There goes the neighborhood. Joining in the celebration of Israel’s 70th birthday this spring, the American State Department will be there as it was at the creation of the Jewish state. However unwillingly.

Opinion

In the unlikely event that readers may not have noticed, this country has developed a three-party system. For in addition to the usual Democrats and Republicans, there are the Russians, who even now are trying to horn in on this country’s mid-term elections.

Opinion

Opinion

It started out as a sweeping proposal to open coastal waters all around the United States to exploration and exploitation for oil. No doubt in just that order. Only now this administration is having second and much better thoughts after the people and politicians of Florida voiced what sounded like a near-unanimous reaction to this administration’s not-so-bright idea. Which was not only No, but Hell No.

Opinion

We the People’s fickle attention span was captured the other day by a dramatic fall in stock indices — the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the NASDAQ composite, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies. ... All went down, down, down as the market had its worst day in years. Then it fell again the next day. But it was about time.

Opinion

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. But what used to go by the honest, simple name of vocational education is now being marketed under the upscale brand of Career Education in keeping with the recurrent rage for rebranding products.

Opinion

How little, if anything, this country seems to have learned from the environmental, economic and just plain human disaster that was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill some seven years ago. For now the regulators have become deregulators in the spirit of these Trumpian times. Donald and the Trumpettes seem unable to perceive where they are headed: a repeat of a disaster that should not have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Opinion

Some of us can think of far worse accusations to make against a president of the United States than what Donald Trump is now being accused of by his oh-so-reflexive critics. Namely, that he changes his mind — and his policies — when they no longer seem to be working. But this isn’t inconsistency so much as common sense. Why go on doing the same thing over and over again in the vain hope that this time it will work?

Opinion

A worried dictator sings a worried song, even if he feels obliged to deliver its refrain with a fired gun in place. For even Hassan Rouhani, leader for now of Iran’s theocracy, seems to have felt obliged to note publicly that the natives have grown restless. And has had to add his support of their expression, if through clenched teeth.